Thursday, May 11, 2017

Reading Mark Mendiola's Article, Marriage vs. Immorality

How do the COGs maintain themselves? In many COGs including LCG lay members are required to pay three tithes to the organization and are required to adhere to many rules and regulations promoted and imposed by the organization. How do the 1% within the COGs keep the congregation together and maintaining itself smoothly. One could imagine how they would resent this and would one day revolt and just leave but even though LCG and the other splinter groups are pale imitations of WCG's heyday it still maintains itself and commands the loyalty of thousands. One reason the lay membership do not suddenly revolt against the ministry is that they are told to be fearful of others outside of the organization and even among themselves.

The third issue of LCG's recruitment magazine, Tomorrow's World (October-December 1999), featured an article by Mark Mendiola entitled "Marriage vs. Immorality" (pp. 22-25, 30.) This was the third of several articles Mendiola would write for this recruitment magazine. Here he condemns attempts by mainstream society to to be more accommodating toward the LGBT community.

Being accepting of the LGBT community will lead to the destruction of the nation shrills Mendiola.

The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are in the throes of a major shift in attitude toward the sanctity of marriage that bodes ill for their future. Can a nation that abandons the traditional family unit continue to survive? History and common sense teach otherwise.

So Mendiola says that "a nation that abandons the traditional family unit" might not "survive". In other words it is implied that his nation, the United States, could be destroyed if sexual conduct contrary to LCG dogma is too prevalent. Since LCG members are told that the nation will soon be destroyed it is little wonder that they would devalue society outside of LCG thinking it is destined to soon be destroyed in the Great Tribulation. So they stay.

He bewails that the leaders of the white "Israelite" nations are behaving sexually in ways contrary to LCG dogma.

Britons, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and Americans in recent years have had to cringe in embarrassment at the spectacle of sexual scandals aired like dirty laundry from Buckingham Palace and the White House.

The infidelity of members of the Royal Family, the president of the United States and delegates in Parliament and Congress has further lowered the moral standards of English-speaking peoples who historically have looked to their leaders to set exemplary examples.

Instead, the actions of these leaders have succeeded in persuading many people in "Christian" nations, where the Bible historically has been preserved and widely distributed, that the laws pertaining to marriage and family within its pages are antiquated and irrelevant for the modern age. Adultery, fornication and even homosexuality are considered acceptable. Meanwhile, the traditional family unit of husband, wife and children suffers as marriage comes under heavy assault. Society’s bedrock principles are being blasted out from under civilization!

Such complaints are merely a warm up to what he really wants to focus on here: vilifying gays. Getting LCG focused on being scared of gays serves to distract LCG members from addressing the problems among themselves. It is reasonable to assume that there are gays within LCG. Such denunciations of them serve to divide LCG members against each other. Instead of getting irritated at those over them in the organization their anger is directed instead against gays. No wonder those still in LCG do not revolt en masse. They are worried about a numerically small group outside the organization and among themselves.

Perhaps one of the most dramatic developments in Anglo- American society, underscoring the extent to which fundamental moral codes have been discarded, is the increasingly widespread acceptance and outright promotion of the so-called gay rights agenda.

He condemns President Clinton and the National Park Service.

On June 11, U. S. President Bill Clinton issued an unprecedented presidential proclamation declaring June 1999 as National Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, a move that infuriated many religious leaders. Earlier in the month, the National Park Service added the Stonewall Inn—a gay bar in Greenwich Village, N.Y., where a homosexual riot occurred 30 years ago—to the National Register of Historic Places.

The Stonewall Inn riot of 1969 is often cited as a landmark event in prompting the LGBT community to begin political activism to improve their social standing and resist the widespread stigma against them.

He condemns President Clinton for attending a dinner and confirming an ambassador for Luxembourg.

Clinton is the first sitting President to speak at a gala dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay and lesbian political organization. He recently circumvented the normal Senate confirmation process by appointing James Hormel—a homosexual San Francisco millionaire—as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg during a congressional recess. America’s first openly gay ambassador’s nomination had been blocked in the U.S. Senate for 20 months.

Is this why Mark Mendiola's God is preparing to destroy the United States, kill many Americans in the Great Tribulation and have "Israelite" Americans deported into slave labor in Europe? Because President Clinton appointed a gay man to be ambassador to Luxembourg? What a joke. What a sickening absurdity.

Even though Mendiola lives in America he focuses on Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in order to reinforce the idea that white Americans and white British are common descendants of the biblical Israelites, an idea that has been long ago discredited as nonsense.

Britain also has been rocked by sex scandals in its government. At least three cabinet members in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government have been exposed as homosexuals. There are so many homosexuals in Blair’s government that one British newspaper wondered if it isn’t being run by a "gay mafia."

Mendiola leaves it unstated which newspaper made that inflammatory claim. Even though it is LCG that has constantly demonized LGBT people Mendiola should dare vilify gays in Britain as being like the mafia. What venomous rhetoric this is.

He even complains that partners of employees who happen to be part of the LGBT community get healthcare benefits from work.

Thirteen percent of all U.S. employers have quietly extended health benefits to the partners of homosexual workers, according to an annual health insurance survey by KPMG Peat Marwick, an accounting firm. For companies with more than 5,000 workers, the figure is one in four.

What does Mendiola want? Does he want these individuals to get sick and die because of a lack of access to healthcare? Healthcare is vital and necessary for everyone. It needs to be as widely available to everyone. In some ways this is the worst statement in the article. It indicates that he does not care about the health and well being of fellow Americans. What sort of attitude is this? This is frightening.

He then exploits Matthew 24 to insist that the Great Tribulation will occur in a time of great prosperity.

Christ also contrasts Lot’s days with Noah’s days by making a conspicuous omission. He makes no mention of marrying and giving in marriage to describe Lot’s society as opposed to Noah’s time because Sodom’s culture was immersed in homosexuality and other illicit activity.

Is Mendiola implying that people will simply stop marrying in the United States? If so that is ridiculous nonsense.

In addition to its widespread sexual immorality, Sodom also was a very prosperous, decadent metropolis like a New York, London, Toronto, Sydney or Auckland today.

This was written just one and a half years before the 9/11 attacks. How dare you talk New York in such a way, Mendiola.

He then complains that those taught by British Israelism to be "Israelites" have produced pornography.

In what could be the most prosperous time in all recorded history, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have squandered their wealth by producing, promoting and exporting some of the most sexually explicit materials imaginable. Pornography in all forms is widely consumed and readily available via the Internet, cable television, videotapes and magazines.

It should be noted that nine years after this article was published the United States did endure a severe financial crisis. But it was not caused by pornography. It was caused by predatory lenders who foisted sub-prime mortgages onto people who could not afford them.

He vilifies American society as being like ancient Greece and Rome.

As a result of this breakdown in sexual morals, marriages and families in British-descended nations are rapidly deteriorating, following the downward spiral of Greece, Rome and other civilizations. Commenting on his times, the Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca stated: "They divorce in order to remarry. They marry in order to divorce." God is no respecter of empires! History is replete with accounts of great nations that have rotted from the inside out and collapsed.

Seneca died in AD 65. The Roman Empire endured for hundreds of years after his demise. And even though the Western Roman Empire was dissolved in 476 the Eastern Roman Empire did not even bother to fall but continued to maintain itself until 1453. Today we call it the Byzantine Empire but the Byzantines themselves called themselves Romans.

He then cites Leviticus 18.

In Leviticus 18, God outlines laws of sexual morality that forbid incest, adultery, homosexuality and bestiality, which He says defiles entire nations. Peoples who indulge in such behavior will be vomited out of the land, He warns.

But which land was meant? The land under discussion there was the Holy Land, not America. Mendiola is talking that passage out of context.

Mendiola insists that "extreme punishment" will soon fall upon America and Britain. Again how is this talk any different from an Iranian saying, "Death to America"? Is this because of that ambassador to Luxembourg?

Yes, a time of extreme punishment is coming on the British and American peoples because of their blatant disregard for divine laws of sex, marriage and family. The consequences of embracing and endorsing a sexually immoral lifestyle diametrically opposed to Biblical tenets [LCG dogma] that have served as our nations’ mainstays will bring unthinkable heartache and suffering. We have sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind! Destruction worse than the days of Noah and Lot is looming.

He ends the article with a promise that soon Christ will return and create a wondrous world of happiness.

Yet, beyond that waste and desolation lies a wonderful world to be established at Christ’s Second Coming. Parents will be honored, children reared in happy homes and the marriage institution restored and exalted in the Kingdom of God. ...

Just think. Marriages and families will be happy. Divorce will be obsolete. Promiscuity and the grief that accompanies it will be abolished. Sexually transmitted diseases will be unknown outside of history books. Leaders setting irreproachable standards will govern society. It is almost unbelievable to contemplate in this licentious day and age, but God’s Bible plainly shows that day will be ushered in by Jesus Christ. God speed Tomorrow’s World and that glorious Kingdom of God!

And all this is to be done after America gets destroyed by Mark Mendiola's God for appointing a gay man as ambassador to Luxembourg.

Mendiola insists that in the millennial rule of LCG's Christ humanity will be led by leaders who will set "irreproachable standards." But what about HWA? He divorced his second wife, Ramona Martin, a fact often completely forgotten within the COGs. And before he married his second wife he took in two Filipina lovers for a time. And back in the 1930s-1940s he committed a most foul and dreadful thing. The COGs cannot even produce such a wondrous society today. How do they expect us that they can do such a thing after Christ returns?

And so Mendiola's polemic against the LGBT community ends. Once again LCG's followers had been told that people outside of the organization are the problem and that they should be scared of those people instead of those who demand three tithes as payment for the organization.

In September 2006 Mendiola left LCG and joined Dave Pack's Restored Church of God. Around 2008 he left RCG and joined Don Billingsley's Church of God-Faithful Flock.

2 comments:

Unless I missed something when I was in the WCG, this wasn't the case. Certainly, a full 10% of gross income plus offerings, with an extra 10% on your third tithe year (although Denny Luker told us it would be easier to pay a third of third tithe each year).The second 10% was to be saved up for the FOT, other holy days for certain Sabbath related expenses. But never, in my time, were we required to pay second tithe, only "excess second tithe" after the FOT.

If You are new please read this

Hand in Hand for Syria

Keep Somalia's Remittances Open

I encourage readers to sign this petition from Oxfam calling upon the U.S. government to let the Somali diaspora continue to send remittance to their loved ones in Somalia.

Moves have been made to shut down such remittances from Somalis in America. Many Somalis need these remittances. The remittances to Somalia are larger than foreign aid contributions and are a lifeline to these people caught in trouble and turmoil.

It is true that HWA said that some Eastern European states would break away from Moscow's orbit and join the European Empire he said would arise at any moment. But he never talked of the Soviet Union collapsing. He did not teach that. Also he portrayed the rise of the European Empire to be far quicker then what has actually happened. In Mystery of the Ages Christ was supposed to return by 2005 at the most.

So assertions that the fall of the Berlin Wall somehow prove that HWA was right is just complete nonsense spread by people who, for whatever reason, are still in denial that HWA was a false prophet who merely talked out of his own "human reasoning".

Truth about Roderick C. Meredith

What sort of man is he? A man who could say things like this.

"Mr. Armstrong has reminded us again that we are to disfellowship any members who attend GTA's [Garner Ted Armstrong's] campaigns, church services or other meetings. Some of our weaker members apparently do not realize that this man is in direct rebellion against God and His government! We must not allow them, or ourselves, to rationalize about this matter, to try to "help the underdog," or in any other way lend support to one whose gross immorality, whose long standing "play acting" and hypocrisy, and whose direct insubordination to the Government of God has long been and is now a source of confusion and DIVISION among God's people. So, as per Mr. Armstrong's instruction, I charge and exhort every one of you faithful ministers of the living Christ to explain this in no uncertain terms to your members, to warn them about this cause of division and then to disfellowship any who consort with GTA or any of his fellows." (Roderick C. Meredith, Pastor's Report, May 21, 1979, pp. 1-2.)

David Robinson on Roderick C. Meredith

"During the ten years I have been an employee of the Worldwide Church, you have been poorly spoken of by most of the ministers and employees I have known. I vividly remember the absolute unbounded glee that was openly expressed by a good number of respected men in the church when you were first "shanghaied." [In 1972.] I could begin by naming names, which I am sure would shock you. I was one of the few who stood, where possible, for you. Your tenure as superintendent of ministers, as I believe the office was then called, was looked on as nightmarish. While you held office during the years of growth, most of those whom I know gave you very little credit for that growth. Almost everyone whom I know, whether they be former friends of yours, or continuing foes, recalls insensitive and terrible things you have done. Without exception, at least among my acquaintances, they all credit you with an unbridled lust for power and list you as one who is willing to pay the price of gaining that power, no matter what. I have, through many of the last few years, believed you had principles you would not violate. Many a man of experience in the church assured me of my error. Events have proven me wrong and them right. Mr. Armstrong has himself been widely quoted as saying of you that you were so righteous that you were so "righteous you were unrighteous." " (David Robinson, Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web, Chapter 16, p. 207.)

Of course it is impossible for me to personally verify these assertions but people deserve to know what this knowledgeable man had to say about him.